


Falling

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Category: Firefly
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-01
Updated: 2006-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-06 22:56:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/58646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are tales about a girl with hair as black as night, skin as white as snow and lips as red as blood. This is not one of those tales.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [curikitten (curi_o)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/curi_o/gifts).



It's marching through my door now the stony cold of lonesome  
A bell tolls for my heart and now my lonesome song will end  
Darling when did we fall? When was it over?  
Darling when? When did we fall? When was it over?  
I suppose it is the price of falling in love  
I fear that it's the price of falling in love

_\- Delerium, "Innocente"_

 

** 1\. Black **

A few months prior to River's twentieth birthday, Simon asked everyone over dinner how they could make arrangements for a party. She had looked away at that point, and Kaylee had been excited in her usual way. She immediately began to talk about cakes and decorations, frilly dresses and fruit. The others joined in readily enough, excited for River. She looked down at her lap, her black hair falling in a curtain over her face.

"My twenty-first birthday, we went out drinkin' and whorin'," Jayne offered helpfully.

"And that helps how?" Mal asked, voice arch.

"Look, she's still a little kid. Can't go talkin' 'bout little frilly party dresses like a six year old would want to wear."

"Jayne has a point," Inara said. After a moment, she added "I can't believe I just said that."

"We should do something nice," Zoe said. "Do it up in style."

_Little River smiled at the three girls in her class that she was friendly with. "On my twenty-first birthday, we'll have a huge party at our house. _Ma_ and _Ba_ will open up the entire estate for me. I'd love it if we were all still friends then."_

They had been sitting over River's favorite textbook, taking notes for the test that they had coming up. Little had they known that she would be moving on to college the following year, the other six year old girls left behind in the junior high school. She never saw them again, though she had thought she heard of them at the Academy. Maybe they had blossomed afterward, and had enrolled from the local high school. River still remembered their names. Irene Connolly, Juliette Bastas, and Georgina Lebeau had been her best friends, and she knew that she would be a long forgotten memory to them if they were even still alive. Maybe they would remember the girl with the long black hair. Maybe it would be blurry, a faint image of a know it all girl sitting next to them, too good for the local junior high school. Maybe they would dimly remember the girl with the black hair, destined for college and physics and dancing. They would never realize she had become some fearsome psychic thing capable of murder and mayhem, piloting her way through the black.

River ran from the room. Startled, the others tried to follow her.

Hours later, Jayne found her first. She was sitting on the metal stairs, dressed in black. On closer inspection, Jayne realized that it was her navy blue dress all covered in ashes. "Where ya been, girl? We looked all over."

"I was to have a magnanimous celebration at the ancestral home with childhood friends on my twenty-first birthday." Her voice was soft and mournful, her hair hanging down in a black wave over her face.

"Where are they now?" Jayne asked with surprising gentleness.

River looked up with bleary eyes. "Dead."

He watched her run up the stairs, heading back to her room. While he would never admit it, Jayne's heart broke a little.

 

** 2\. White **

"We're fools, every one."

Simon rolled his eyes at Jayne, and Kaylee swatted his arm. River remained silent.

"We have an announcement to make," Simon said, linking hands with Kaylee. "And River wanted to come. She hasn't seen our parents in years."

The Tam estate looked the same as it always had, but River had never thought of it as imposing before. Jayne was ostensibly their bodyguard, an extra pair of eyes in case the Alliance truly wasn't done with them yet. River was their pilot now; she had good working knowledge of the ship, and every once in a while flew as if she had imbibed the spirit of Wash. Jayne was really the only dedicated muscle they had.

Anxious-faced servants led them into the drawing room. Jayne looked around the room, taking in the exquisite furnishings. If anyone noticed a few expensive knickknacks, candlesticks or objets d'art missing, no one said a word.

Gabriel and Regan Tam swept into the room, heads held high. They took in the ragtag look of the four in front of them. River's face was deathly pale; Jayne thought that she matched the white wallpaper nicely. Simon introduced Kaylee as his fiancee, and Gabriel's face grew stony. River's grew even more pale.

"You would sully our name further than you have already?" Gabriel asked angrily. "When I agreed to this, I thought you would ask forgiveness."

"Forgiveness?" Simon asked, amazed. "For what?"

Gabriel shook his head in disgust. "The damage you have done to us is unmeasurable."

_"Damage?_ Saving River from their torture _damaged_ you?" Simon asked, voice rising. Kaylee put a calming hand on Simon's arm just as Regan did the same for Gabriel. Simon shook Kaylee's hand off. "How did keeping her from further harm damage _you_ when you were here the whole time, safe and sound?"

"You have _shamed us,"_ Gabriel hissed, pushing Regan away. "You were fugitives! We couldn't show our face in society. We couldn't sit in our own opera box! And now you add insult to injury by bringing some Rim World whore to be your bride! I will not accept that!"

Kaylee's slap across Gabriel's face was loud in the stunned silence. River's face was pure white, Simon's and Kaylee's flushed with rage. Jayne kept his hand over his gun, eying the situation closely. Of them all, River looked the most affected.

"You ain't nothing more than a coward. You believe in nothing so you are nothing. Your son is a thousand times better than you," Kaylee snapped.

"I had thought they were stone," River said softly. Her eyes slipped over her parents' faces and she looked at the blank white walls. "I had thought them to be like carved marble, something to strive to. But there is no spark, no fire, and they are cold metal. They lost their fires, and grew brittle. There will be no fires from the next generation for them. They lost their will for it, and cannot be reforged. They grow brittle, and will break rather than bend."

"I think that means it's time to go," Jayne said. He pocketed a last item as he stepped forward. He ushered the other three out of the door and then into the shuttle to fly back to Serenity.

He was most disturbed by the look on River's face, the paleness of her cheeks. She seemed too tiny and alone. Simon and Kaylee had each other, and would comfort one another. River had no one to turn to.

"We will white their names from our minds," River said when they landed on Serenity. "Just as they removed us from their hearts."

 

** 3\. Red **

The cargo bay was decorated in red paper streamers, red paper flowers and red cloth spread over a few of the crates to serve as tables. Inara had graciously helped obtain these things and keep Kaylee's enthusiasm in check. Mal had groused enough at the use of his cargo bay as a party area, and seeing Kaylee's decorations unchecked would have given him a coronary. Inara had gotten appropriate music from the Cortex for the party. She and Kaylee had discussed it, and she had chosen some elegant background music during the gift giving part. Kaylee had chosen some rollicking tunes for dancing after the cake was served.

River hadn't been surprised, of course. But she smiled, and her face brightened. She had tied her hair back with a red ribbon that Kaylee had given her for the occasion, and her cheeks seemed to be almost rosy pink.

Mal gave her a heavy book on the history of physics theory. Zoe had gifted her with a supple leather jacket that was both comfortable and full of roomy pockets. Simon had given her an art supply case full of colored pencils, watercolors and different inks. Kaylee gave her a calligraphy set and packs of drawing paper. Inara gave her perfumed soaps and lotions and a delicate gold chain with the symbol for happiness. Jayne gave her a red dress.

River examined the dress in the uproar it caused in the others. It wasn't a dress that little girls who colored with pencils and watercolors wore. It wasn't a dress that pilots in leather bomber jackets wore. It wasn't a dress that a student of physics wore.

It was a dress that someone who used perfumes and wore jewelry wore. It had delicate straps criss-crossing across the back, and the neckline in front plunged low to accentuate any curves there. The hem dropped to below the knee and would flare out in a dance twirl. It was a red dress for dancing in, the dress of a woman who could appreciate love and life, the dress of a woman would live in fire.

She laughed. It was fitting for Jayne to see what the others could not. It was as it always was.

The laughter stopped the arguments, and Jayne looked at River stubbornly, chin thrust out in wounded pride. He thought she was laughing at his gift, and thought that she didn't appreciate it. He had sold a silver toothpick box for the coin to buy it, saving her great-grandmother's candlesticks to give to Simon and Kaylee as their wedding present. His thoughtfulness was startling, and caused her to give him her widest and most grateful smile. He looked almost dumbstruck at the sight of her smiling at him.

"You all see me differently," she said, collecting up all the gifts to her chest. "I love them all, all the different sides of me. I thank you most vociferously."

She ran to her room, her floral dress fluttering behind her.

"What just happened?" Mal asked, confused.

"I think she was keeping us from yelling too much," Zoe said wryly. "We seem to do that a lot."

"And at me, no less," Jayne groused, crossing his arms over his chest. "I didn't do nothin'."

"Huh. We'll see about that," Simon growled. It was actually almost convincing.

River ran back into the party, wearing the gold happiness necklace, perfume and the red party dress. The skirt swirled around her legs as she twirled around. "I love them all," she declared, standing on the tips of her bare toes.

Jayne's mouth had run dry. He had guessed at her size, and had guessed that she would be beautiful once the others allowed her to grow up from the child they imagined her to be. He had no idea how right he had been.

She grasped his hands and looked into his eyes. "It's a dress for dancing in."

"Uh, yeah."

"And going out in."

"Yeah, that too."

"I shall wear it for my twenty-first birthday. There will be no childhood friends for felicitations, but my new ones are better suited for the occasion."

Jayne blinked at the earnest look she was giving him and smiled slowly. "Next year, I'll get ya some red high heels to match."

He managed to duck Simon's fist, but only just. He had been too preoccupied with River's red lips curving into a seductive smile.

_Gorram,_ but didn't she look like she had just woken from a fairy tale? He was interested in seeing how the rest of the story unfolded.

 

The End.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Little Girl Lost: A Fractured Fairy Tale (the Red, White, and Black remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/125545) by [Jain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jain/pseuds/Jain)




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